As Tony says, they are non-breaking spaces usually inserted using
Ctrl+Shift+Spacebar. They're purpose is to stop adjacent characters or words
from separating.
--
Terry Farrell - MSWord MVP
"Judy" wrote in message
...
On Nov 11, 4:28 pm, "Tony Jollans" My forename at my surname dot com
wrote:
I can't tell you why you're getting them - are you copying and pasting
external text perhaps but the dot is a normal space and the circle is a
non-breaking space that you can use to stop lines breaking wher eyou don't
want them to. You can use Find and Replace to change them all to normal
spaces: in the Find box enter a single space, and in the Replace box enter
^s (caret, letter ess), and then press Replace All.
--
Enjoy,
Tony
www.WordArticles.com
"Judy" wrote in message
...
I have a doc with a table where the first paragraph is in date form
like: 2008 10 11 z 1730 for 1800 B. By clicking on Show/Hide I can see
that there are two different kinds of spaces: 2008*10*11
z&1730*for*1800&B, where * represents a space shown by a small black
dot and & a space shown by a small superscripted circle. In sorting a
* space comes before a & space. This can mess up the needed sort
order.
Can anyone tell me why I’m getting two different spaces? I’m not
conscious of entering different spaces.
A. No copy and paste is involved. All are entered manually.
B. Find and Replace would be burdensome - not the solution in this
particular case. In fact replacing with ^s changes the dot to the
circle, which is the reverse of the need.
C. Surely someone knows what these different spaces truly are and
perhaps has an insight into how I’m managing to produce them.